If you’re a football fan, odds are you probably know exactly where you will be on Sunday as Super Bowl XLIX kicks off. We’re aiming to be right there with you.

Thirty minutes before the game — at 5 p.m. Central time — we’re kicking off #BeckettBigGame where we’ll be giving collectors a chance to land free football cards thanks to Topps. We’ll be running the #BeckettBigGame all game long and also for 30 minutes after the game ends, getting prizes into the hands of 20 collectors who participate.

How? All you have to do is follow us on the @BeckettMedia Twitter account during the game where we’ll have multiple winners of pack lots, wax boxes, factory sets and Topps autographed rookie cards and Relics up for grabs during the pre-game show, during every quarter, during halftime, and even during a 30-minute post-game session.

In fact, we have so much to give away there that it starts right here, right now. Get the details and our breakdown of #BeckettBigGame … after the jump.

First pricing for 2014 Elite Extra Edition baseball is now live for all subscribers to the Beckett Online Price Guide.

Loaded with prospect autographs and parallels, collectors have been clamoring for Kyle Schwarber, Alex Jackson and Rusney Castillo’s cards, all of which have the potential to be Hot List candidates in the coming months. For the third year in a row, USA Baseball jersey and autographs have been included in the product. A top prospect in the 2015 draft and son of former Major-Leaguer Mike Cameron, Daz Cameron‘s USA Baseball 18U Signatures card — limited to just 199 copies — is priced at an impressive $40.

Season 5 of The Walking Dead has been a huge roller coaster ride thus far. The trials and tribulations that the post-apocalyptic family of Rick Grimes deal with are becoming more grueling and disparaging. The walkers are more disgusting and rotted than ever, resources and food are scarce, and the outsiders are more sadistic and violent. When the series returns on Feb. 8, the fate of Rick, Michonne, Daryl, and everyone else looks very grim. The characters will most likely face some very emotionally draining situations. This begs the question: What have been the most emotionally draining, shocking, or tragic moments in the history of the series? Well, fear not, Walking Dead-heads! After fan feedback and in-depth research, I have listed the top 5.

Max Scherzer’s deal with the Washington Nationals will last seven years. In seven big-league seasons with the Diamondbacks and Tigers, Scherzer has gone 91-50 with a 3.58 ERA and 1,321 strikeouts in 1,239-plus innings pitched. He’s been an All-Star the last two seasons and was the American League MVP in 2013 when he went 21-3.

Collectors have known about the righty even longer as he made his cardboard debut back in 2005 as a member of the USA Baseball National Team. Here are my picks for five early and affordable Scherzer cards to track down first.

2005-06 USA Baseball National Team Signature Black #MS /475, $25 (above)
He appears on 19 cards in the USA Baseball boxed set — and 17 of those are autographed cards of some sort. This one is his main signed card and a shockingly affordable option considering it predates most of his other ink by a notable amount of time.

Every Monday morning throughout the NFL season, we selected our rookie, veteran and breakout players of the week and provided a run down on why collectors should take notice. For the Conference Championship round, we’ve selected three top performers who could make a hobby impact.

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By Justin Grunert and Dan Hitt

Marshawn Lynch, RB, Seahawks(157 yards rushing, 1 touchdown)During the Seahawk’s stunning come-from-behind win in the NFC Championship game, few Seahawk offensive players performed well for the entire game. Russell Wilson was rattled for more than three quarters and the receiving corps had more than their fair share of drops and missed opportunities. But Lynch was strong all game long and came through with a number of huge plays late in the game when it counted most. Lynch has been a top back in the league for years, recording his fourth 1000+ yard rushing season in 2014 and scoring a career season high in touchdowns. Collectors have made Lynch’s cards some of the hottest in the hobby off and on during that period but never have his best cards reached the level of fellow 2007 rookie Adrian Peterson. That may all change now with Peterson cards on the down slide and Lynch playing the best football of his career.

Get your resume ready. Beckett Media is hiring full-time staff members — both in its Dallas office and in regional locations throughout the United States.

Among the positions currently available:

– Card Grading: The grading submissions are pouring into BGS, so we need more graders. If working with sports cards on a daily basis is something you have always dreamed of doing, consider becoming a grader for the No. 1 service in the industry.

– Price Guide: If you enjoy tracking secondary-market values for trading cards, then a career as a Beckett price guide analyst may be right for you. We’re accepting applications right now for our Dallas office from serious collectors and dealers of modern sports and non-sports cards.

– Sales: Do you get thrilled watching your customers’ business grow? We are seeking experienced sales-team members across the Beckett business – work out of our Dallas office, or your home.

Full-time positions at Beckett Media offer a very competitive salary, bonus structure and benefit package. If you are interested in joining the Beckett team, send us a resume ASAP at careers@beckett.com!

We caught up with him for a brief Q&A about group-breaking for the issue of Beckett Sports Card Monthly that is in shops now, and here’s a part of that chat for our latest Sunday Conversation.

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How important is group-breaking today?
Group-breaking has become an integral part of the hobby over the past few years. Its growing popularity can be found through both an influx of online group-breaking hosts, and through increased participation by collectors and hobby enthusiasts. One of the biggest benefits to online group-breaking is that it provides collectors with immediate access to various types of products. Many of our customers do not have access to a local hobby shop and/or the ability to purchase entire boxes/cases of product by themselves. Group-breaking has made the hobby once again affordable as collectors are able to purchase specific teams and players from desirable products without having to break the bank.

Although some collectors may know Press Pass as merely the lone maker of NASCAR cards, the company had an influential run in other sports and helped change the game when it comes to cardboard.

The company is now finished creating cards after a run that included revolutionary game-used releases, historic college brands, memorable non-traditional sports releases and unique non-sports lineups that included Elvis Presley right alongside Yo Gabba Gabba.

Press Pass did plenty during its cardboard run that began back in 1992 — and it did plenty for the world of NASCAR cards — here is a look at a few key sets from the company that you might not remember.

The 2015 IIHF World Junior Championship will be heading into its final matchup on Monday evening as Canada is set to face Russia in what could prove to be a fine conclusion to the annual tournament. The Canadians, led by already-drafted talent like Sam Reinhart, Curtis Lazar and Zach Fucale along with potential first overall pick in the 2015 NHL Entry Draft, Connor McDavid, are looking to end their gold medal drought on home ice and will have a nation’s eyes upon them. Hockey Canada, in partnership with eBay Canada, is auctioning off a wide selection of game-used jerseys and equipment and the action for these items has been quite intense in recent days.

Leading the pack, as expected, is a game-used sweater from McDavid which was worn during a pre-competition game against Sweden on December 21 and a round robin battle with Germany six days later. On Sunday evening, bidding had reached an impressive $17,800 CDN with over three days left before the hammer drops. Read More »

D.J. Kazmierczak, right, with Joe Namath during Panini’s NSCC VIP Party last year.

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By Chris Olds | Beckett Sports Card Monthly Editor

D.J. Kazmierczak is Panini America‘s Vice President of Sales and we recently caught up with him for a chat about group-breaking for an upcoming issue of Beckett Sports Card Monthly.

He is also the subject of this week’s Sunday Conversation …

How important has group-breaking been for your company?We were the first company to recognize the opportunity that group-breaking provides the industry. It has been a methodical process figuring out the management of that part of the category. But it is important to our business.

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Do you have any estimates about product volume or revenue increases you could attribute to the trends?We have a lot of quantifiable data. But I don’t want to share specifics because it can always be taken out of context. Let’s just say that group breaking certainly accelerates the velocity of sales on certain products.

Beckett first pricing for 2014 Select football is now live to all subscribers to the Beckett Football Online Price Guide.

The Online Price Guide allows subscribers to access complete and full pricing for all cards cataloged and priced in our football database. This not only includes full checklists and all pricing for all mainstream products, but also every ancillary or regional set, old and new, that we catalog. The OPG is also the first place that Beckett pricing will appear for new products and the first place price changes on older cards are published.

2014 Select football is a continuation of last year’s successful relaunch of the brand produced on foilboard with a variety of Prizm parallels. This year, Select has been beefed-up to include a much wider range of inserts and parallels (14 in all) as well as predictor-type cards for teams competing for the Super Bowl title and players competing for the MVP and offensive and defensive Rookie of the Year Awards. These exchange cards are reminiscent of the 1990s-era Stadium Club and Upper Deck predictor cards and have bee garnering plenty of secondary market interest. For example, Odell Beckham Jr., the odds on favorite to win Offensive Rookie of the Year, is trading at $30-$60 while the Super Bowl favorite Seahawks card is valued at $15.

Since its re-release, the momentum of Dragon Ball Z has been nothing short of phenomenal. We’ve had a few successful giveaways and we aren’t stopping.

Our most recent giveaway was a Facebook exclusive in which we served up five booster boxes and two starter decks to seven lucky winners. Now, we are having a second chance drawing and we are giving away five more booster boxes.

Just leave a comment below and tell us anything about Dragon Ball Z. A triumphant come-from-behind win at a DBZ tournament perhaps? Or, maybe just fond memories of playing with family members and/or friends? We want to hear them and we will select five lucky winners to receive a booster box of Panini America’s 2014 DBZ.

It’s time for us to make our selections for the best baseball cards of the year, and we want your help.

While we’ll continue to argue about the highlights of 2014 — with a couple brands still to come in the next week or so — we want your votes for your highlights. We’ve prepared ballots for the notable categories below — and offered your chance to write-in votes on other categories, too.

Your picks for the Best of 2014 will appear alongside ours in the next issue of Beckett Baseball.

It’s been nearly a month since Beckett Grading Services launched BGS Black — a simple new label that notes perfect BGS 10 Pristine cards that have four perfect 10 subgrades with a striking black flip.

The new label has sparked a premium for sales of perfect cards, a move that BGS Director Jeromy Murray said has also prompted a number of previously graded perfect cards to be re-submitted for the new label and a number of other cards that came up just .5 short on one subgrade to be sent in for re-examination.

“[Our] feedback is that the label is demanding a premium over the standard 10s, which is good news,” Murray said.

One real-world example of this can be seen with the perfect 2014 Bowman ChromeKris Bryant card above. It sold on eBay for $3,000. That’s more than double the amount of three previous BGS 10 copies of the same Blue Refractor have sold for on eBay. One sold for $1,406 in late-August, another sold for $1,130 in November and one went for $1,028 — also in August.

Beckett Hockey recently had the chance to speak with NHL Network analyst and retired player Dave Reid at a recent NHL Alumni Tour stop in Belleville, Ontario. During his playing days, the former Stanley Cup champion was known for his passion for hockey cards and offered some of his thoughts on the hobby. Be sure to look for a complete profile of him that will be published in an upcoming issue.

DALLAS (Dec. 16, 2014) – Beckett Media, the collectible industry’s most-trusted brand, is pleased to announce the acquisition of Goodwin & Co., a leading sports auction house. As part of the transaction announced today, Bill Goodwin, president of St. Louis-based Goodwin & Co., will join the Beckett management team under a long-term agreement.

“We are thrilled to welcome Bill Goodwin and Goodwin & Co. Auctions to the Beckett family,’’ said Sandeep Dua, president of Beckett Media. “This is an important step forward for Beckett, and expands our unparalleled commitment to the industries we serve.’’

Goodwin & Co. (www.goodwinandco.com) has conducted more than 50 highly successful “Masterpieces and Uncommon Commons’’ auctions during the past 15 years. Bill Goodwin, one of the industry’s most respected vintage card experts, has sold more than $100 million in sports cards in his incomparable career. He also served as co-host of the landmark 1995 National Convention.

Panini teased it’s upcoming debut release of 2014 Immaculate Football with 11 autographed card images that arrived this week. No other information was given for the product. From the looks of the cards, it will be pretty high-end in the league, at least in quality, with Flawless and National Treasures. More information will be posted as soon as we learn more. For now, enjoy this sneak peek.

This year, Beckett Auctions has gone to great lengths to bring collectors some incredible and rare treasures and for their December event, one of the hobby’s most coveted cards is up for bids and the action on the BVG 5.5 1952 Mickey Mantle “B” version is expected to be intense when it starts at 12:00 CST on Sunday afternoon.

“When it comes to our hobby, this is truly one of the most iconic cards and is held in a very high regard,” said Beckett Auctions Acquisitions Manager Rob Springs. “This particular copy has the highest BGS/BVG grade ever given for this variation and we are very excited to be able to present it to our auction customers. We anticipate the card to bring somewhere in the range of $25,000 to $30,000.”

For collectors unaware of why this card is so unique, it is a small variation where the stitching on the number circle on the back of the card points right instead of left and last “E” in Mantle’s facsimile signature on the front stops instead of curling up.

What else will collectors be bidding once our latest auction begins? Find out after the jump. Read More »

The MLB Hot Stove is quite warm this week with several moves that could spark interest in the baseball cards of a few key players.

Believe it or not, that’s not as easily done as it is said with a collecting landscape that often hinges upon rookies and key guys collectors can bank on. In other words, key moves might not resonate as much on cardboard as they might in the standings for players who aren’t seen as The Next Big Thing.

But, that said, here are five players whose change of scenery might spark some new interest in their cardboard.

1. Yoenis Cespedes — traded to Detroit TigersBouncing from team to team typically doesn’t help the demand for a player’s cardboard, but Cesepedes has gone from Oakland to Boston to Detroit in less than a year. Some might say he’s now in a better location — though the Tigers did give up a decent name (Rick Porcello) to get him.

He has plenty of cardboard for Tigers fans to now consider — also a plus — but most of it shows him in green.

If Cespedes performs well, they might not care. Or, it could be a scenario much like Miguel Cabrera where his current-team autographed cards are more in-demand than those from the past.

The relaunch of this product by Panini America has been a huge hit and to celebrate this wonderful occasion, we are going to select two more lucky winners to each receive a booster box and a pre-constructed starter deck of 2014 Dragon Ball Z.

All you have to do in order to win is write a comment in the section below. Please tell us your Dragon Ball Z stories. Why did you start collecting DBZ? Have you been an avid collector of DBZ since the beginning? Have you had a chance to buy the new version of DBZ? What do you like about the new DBZ? We want to hear it all!

Beckett Hockey recently had the chance to speak with Hockey Hall of Fame member and author Chris Chelios about his career and thoughts about collecting sports memorabilia. Be sure to look for a complete feature on him that will be published in the February, 2015 issue.

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You have recently released your autobiography with respected hockey writer Kevin Allen, which has been titled Made In America (Triumph Books) in the United States and Overtime (HarperCollins) in Canada. What spurred you to make the decision to tell your story?

“The biggest reason that I wanted to do it was, after the Hall of Fame, I had abut 100 people up there. It was pretty much as many tickets as I was able to get. The book was a way of acknowledging people and thanking them for helping me along the way, from basically my childhood and through hockey and everything. From what I have heard so far, the feedback has been good. People that I have mentioned in it have contacted me and said how grateful they were and for them, it was exciting to be a part of it.”Read More »

After examining thousands of images on eBay, we believe that some of the patterns found in 2014 Topps High Tek are exclusive to the American League players, others are exclusive to the National League players, while others feature players from both leagues. Multiple email requests for confirmation from Topps have gone unanswered, so we’re reaching out to the Beckett community to confirm or dispute our findings.

Now, it’s only been a few days since the product went live, so it’s possible for some of our conclusions to be found untrue, but there are hundreds of examples of some of these patterns on the secondary market and we’ve yet to find one that disputes what we’ve found.

Please note that it appears the Wave and Spiral Bricks patterns are widely available and are likely to be combined into one base set in the Beckett Online Price Guide, as will the parallels. Also, based on how they are pictured on their base cards, Topps has considered Robin Yount, Jon Singleton and George Springer AL players, while Craig Biggio, Jeff Bagwell, Jean Segura and Ryan Braun are considered NL players. Taking into account what league they were in during their careers, this would make sense.

The newest edition of Topps Tek released today in the form of 2014 Topps High Tek and with it comes a base set featuring 12 different background patterns — some more difficult to find than others.

While secondary market information is still sparse, we’ve scoured eBay and have been able to determine 11 of the 12 background patterns. Please note that the descriptions listed below are subject to change. The cards are printed on clear acetate, so the blue and black colors shown are the background of the scans, and not printed on the actual card. We will update this post as more information becomes available.

Beckett Media is proud to announce the launch of Beckett SuperSeller – an industry-leading online tool that allows you to easily list cards on eBay at a fixed price, using Beckett’s online Organize tool. For as low as 10 cents per listing, you can begin using the service, or purchase a monthly package based on your individual listing needs. Included with each listing is a pre-built title, a custom description using attributes and data from the Beckett database, plus access to the Beckett stock photo system. Each listing can be customized with one user-uploaded photo.

Monthly packages are available starting at $24.99/month, which includes 500 FREE eBay fixed price listings. Need more listing power? Then consider the Beckett SuperSeller Gold package, which includes 5,000 FREE eBay fixed-price listings per month. And because of our unique relationship with eBay, we can help users with requests to raise their listing limits on eBay when using Beckett SuperSeller. During the checkout process to purchase SuperSeller, you will be asked to fill out some information about yourself that will be shared with eBay. You can start listing immediately, and any expanded listing limits can be approved in just a few days.

As collectors, most of the time we get what we want. There are a wide variety of sports and non-sports sets from which to choose. An autograph here, a relic there. A fan of collecting base sets? No problem. There are plenty out there. However, once in a great while, we anticipate the major release of a set and come up empty handed.

That happened in 2014 with the non-release of arguably the best superhero film of the year: X-Men: Days of Future Past. This is surprising since X-Men card sets (both comic and film) have been very successful in the past. Topps released sets for the first two X-Men films from 2000 to 2003 and Rittenhouse picked up the 2006 X-Men and 2009 Wolverine films. However, since then, all has been quiet on the X-Men front. No official sets were released for 2011’s X-Men: First Class or 2013’s The Wolverine.

Considering the hype behind it, it’s hard to comprehend how Days of Future Past was left off of the non-sports card industry’s to-do list. Too much star power? Maybe. Licensing issues? Perhaps. The fact is that the major card companies missed out on a winner.

Today, Beckett introduces the ultimate label, for the ultimate card, for the ultimate collector.

A card worthy of four “10” subgrades is worthy of a special label. Starting today, each card that reaches this quad-10 level will receive a special black label showing that the ultimate grade has been reached. The black label is for modern cards only — and not valid for any BVG cards (1980 and older).

For more information, including recasing your quad 10s, reviewing your current BGS 10s or new submissions, contact your BGS representative by clicking here.

Beckett Media is pleased to announce its most significant Price Guide development in a decade – Beckett Online Price Guide Plus.

Subscribers to Beckett Online Price Guide Plus will gain full access to our extensive raw market sales information database through their standard Online Price Guide interface. But what does this do, exactly, for the collector or dealer?

Thousands of bits of raw card sales data are accumulated every day inside the Beckett database. This raw information forms the basis for the data analyzed by pricing staff to produce and publish Beckett Price Guides. For nearly three decades, the pricing information released in our print and Online Price Guides was enough to satisfy the majority of collector and dealer demand for market pricing. While Beckett pricing data is still the best source of information for buyers and sellers, there have been an increasing number of cards released into the market that fall outside the scope of our traditional coverage — hence the need for Beckett Online Price Guide Plus.

Josh Gordon made is return to the gridiron on Sunday, and he showed everybody that he has still got it! Even though he didn’t play a single down all season, Gordon looked ready to play. His return comes at the best time for the Browns who are fighting for the AFC North title. Josh Gordon’s 120 yards receiving helped the Browns secure a victory over the Atlanta Falcons, 26-24. Since his suspension, Gordon’s cards have taken a hit in value. A perfect example of that is his Panini Contenders rookie autograph card. Its peak value was $80 and they are now valued at $50. Now that he has shown that he is back and playing at a high level, collectors might start getting interested in picking up his cards again.

One of the greatest NFL quarterback’s greatest early cards is hitting the auction block.

A Pristine BGS 10 copy of Peyton Manning‘s 1998 SP Authentic Die Cuts card — one of only two cards to receive that grade — has hit the auction block via St. Louis-based Goodwin & Co.It’s a parallel of the future Hall of Famer’s top Upper Deck Rookie Card — and it’s limited to only 500 copies. The auction runs until Dec. 3.

Ungraded, the cards typically sell for as much as $800. This one is quite different with it being just a single .5 away from a perfect 10 grade.

“This card grade represents what Peyton Manning is all about — achieving perfection,” said Rob Springs, the Acquisitions Manager for Beckett Auctions. “This is an outstanding modern-day card of possibly the greatest quarterback to ever play the game and we are excited that it is a part of the Goodwin November auction.”

Black Friday is the day where many of you will battle the shopping crowds for the latest and greatest deals — the one day a year where shopping becomes a sport and you become the competitor. However, we have one thing that Beckett Media want you to watch for right here on Beckett.com that Friday morning.

Future Hall of Famer Mariano Rivera visited Seoul, South Korea, as part of a promotional tour for JBL headphones and Beckett Grading Services’ Dongwoon Lee was there along with a few collectors who got to meet MLB’s career saves leader.

SPx is back for basketball collectors and it might be better than ever – especially for those that have been enjoying Upper Deck’s roundball releases as of late.

Arriving on store shelves in January, this brand has not been a part of the company’s lineup since 2008-09 and there have been some improvements that are sure to appeal to many hobbyists. Propelled by the presence of one strong hit in every five-card pack, it looks at the latest players to make the jump to the pro level along with a rarely-matched selection of collegiate legends.

What will collectors find in packs of 2014-15 Spx? Find out after the jump. Read More »